


Bits and Pieces

by Ranowa



Series: Extraordinary [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, BAMF John Watson, Confused Sherlock Holmes, Fluff, Gen, John is having the time of his life, Muggle Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, There's A Tag For That, Wizard John Watson, basically: let's give muggle sherlock a tour of hogwarts, john also loves the hell out of sherlock but doesn't know how to say it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23146399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: "I'm a wizard, Sherlock."..."You're awhat?"
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: Extraordinary [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663825
Comments: 41
Kudos: 313





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, we're certainly all in a different boat than when I posted the first part, aren't we? Stay safe, stay healthy, stay calm, and read fic!
> 
> This is a follow-up to Just a Magic Trick, and is essentially just more of me playing around in this what-if AU. The first part was the Angst part, the third part will be the Hurt/Comfort part- this is the Fluff part! Which... will have some angst in chapter two, as we get John's backstory... but it won't be as unrelenting as the first part, I promise. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented or kudosed the first part, and I hope you enjoy fluff as much as you enjoyed angst!

Sherlock opened his eyes to:

Medical wing. Private and expensive, by the smell and sights, absolutely not a standard hospital ward. The type of place that reeked of Mycroft.

Distant throbbing, in his right arm, with a scratching at his neck that promised it was in a sling. A strange and healing sort of pain, one that ached like abused muscles rather than screeched for attention, as for any significant injury. An injury that he did not remember sustaining.

Bloody idyllic _birds outside the window,_ in a nauseating stereotype of tranquility that was so presently absurd it felt as if he'd just been lifted out of Paris and dropped right into a children's story book.

And-

John Watson.

John Watson. Who, as a consequence of the most carefully laid plans of Sherlock's life, months spent crafting it in absolute secrecy and ironed out to every last detail, was meant to be in London, publicly grieving, and thoroughly convinced that he was dead.

Who was now currently sitting right across the room from Sherlock, his feet kicked up and a notebook in his lap, and looked about as pleased with himself as Sherlock had _ever_ seen him.

What.

Sherlock's prodigious brain skittered straight off the tracks to a screeching crash of a halt.

"...Um," he said.

His throat felt like he'd swallowed a cactus, and his voice came out rough and more guttural than a smoker's cough. If Sherlock had still had any scrap of pride left to salvage, he could've kicked himself.

And then John looked at him, and it was as if every bit of logic, sensibility, and rational thought abandoned Sherlock then and there, and flipped the entire world upside down.

"Good morning," John said.

Sherlock's world flipped a second time.

Good _morning?_

"Wasn't expecting you up for another few hours, yet," he went on. Conversational and casual as a cup of tea. "Thanks for helping me keep my word- I told Madam Pomfrey you'd be defying expectations every step of the way."

Sherlock blinked again. His eyes felt dry and gummy, sticky with the telltale sense of having been shut for days, and when he tried to clear his throat a second time, he surely must've swallowed fire.

"...What?"

Then, John was up, and Sherlock, still, was lost.

"No, hang on. Hang on- drink something first. That's it." A cup of water was pushed insistently into Sherlock's hand, John instructing him in that stern voice that tended to put him on autopilot; he barely even registered that his other arm was in a sling, or the dull ache in his shoulder that was unexplained and baffling. "And this one, too. Just some orange juice, Sherlock, it'll help perk you right up."

This cup, too, he accepted on little more than autopilot, still staring down at himself in baffled bewilderment. Unfamiliar _pajamas._ Since when? His right arm, aching oddly, which was particularly strange, because the last thing he remembered, his _head_ had been the part of him that was hurting. A bed. Since _when?!_ Sore and boneless and-

_"Ack!"_

"Whoops! Sorry, did I say orange juice? Meant Skele-Gro. Here we go."

 _"John,"_ Sherlock hacked, because now, his throat had had a bloody _chainsaw_ shoved down it. Liquid chainsaw, that was _smoking_ in its little cup, and burned like ethanol and hit his stomach and made him gag. _Orange juice?!_ "You _liar,_ you- _"_

"Here we go," John said again, "You get any of that down?" One warm, strong hand rubbed his back, encouraging another violent hack of a cough, and another cup was shoved into his hand. "This one's actually water, this time, I promise. Come on, don't cough up a lung."

Stern voice or not, this time, Sherlock smelled the new cup in his hands very, very carefully before he dared risk another sip. The fire in his throat eased somewhat, from chainsaw back to cactus.

The sheer weight of confusion, heavy and wary in every inch of him, stayed front and center.

"John." He tasted the contours in his mouth, that earth-shattering syllable that he had left in London to save. The name that he wasn't supposed to have seen again. Not now, not tomorrow, not for months; not for years.

John. Here. With him.

"John," he rasped again, "what is going _on?"_

It was a simple question, demanding a simple answer. It was an impossible question, demanding an equally impossible answer: _how?_ How had John found him? How had John learned the truth? How had John gotten him here? Where was here? Where was Mycroft? Where was Moran? Was _John_ okay? Lestrade? Mrs. Hudson?

There were a thousand things for John to say, in that moment.

But instead of words, the hand on his back faltered, and and his weathered eyes just- softened. Sherlock stared at John, and John stared at him, and for a moment there was nothing, and then-

Then, Sherlock wasn't sure that he had ever seen John happier.

John was quiet for a moment, saying nothing as he drew down to sit. John, who looked- utterly ridiculous. More well-rested and at ease than he had ever seen him, wearing a jumper and, meanwhile, a black cloak that made him look like he'd just walked off a Lord of the Rings set. (Movie marathon for a case. Obviously.) _What._

"What is going on," John said, after a pause. His voice came out suddenly rough, like there was something stuck in his throat and he couldn't quite clear it away, and his eyes were shining. "Is that you are a reckless, insane, self-acrificing git, and I can't decide whether I want to punch or hug you. You _bastard._ I-" He squeezed his shoulder, but then just left his hand there, holding Sherlock in place in a grip like iron, and the look on his face was a knife through the stomach. "You are... a selfless _moron,_ Sherlock Holmes. And... and you have no idea how lucky you are."

Sherlock wondered if he might've had a stroke.

A quick rundown, of the utterly inscrutable and baffling situation at hand, and- statistically, it was actually a rather likely option. Something had gone wrong during his fall, then, and he'd hit his head, and all of this was just an increasingly bizarre construction of his very bruised brain. It would certainly provide an explanation that was otherwise sorely lacking, because- there _was_ no explanation for this, not a single line of logic that could take him through all the way to the end, _and yet-_

John swallowed audibly, his face doing a little spasm. He stared back at Sherlock, this time with a small grin, and the hand on his shoulder stayed, but the breath he took in next was anything but calm. "That's what you are," he said, "and... I am..."

"John, what on _earth-"_

"I'm a wizard, Sherlock."

Everything ground to a bone-scraping halt.

...

"You're a _what?"_

* * *

The explanation, from there, came in bits and pieces.

"I am sorry about this, by the way," John said, and despite the smile he didn't seem to be able to swallow down, his voice was sincere. He was genuinely sorry. His expert hands carefully moved around Sherlock's wrapped shoulder, holding him in place, supporting him upright, and then just touching just to touch. "This bit of you? Got left behind in France."

Sherlock surreptitiously slipped his hand down to pinch his own thigh.

His shoulder. Which hurt, but- minimally. Less than being shot, less than being dislocated- it felt like hardly more than a bad bruise. It looked much the same, scarred all the way around, but the skin dry and pink in a way that was weeks rather than mere days old.

He looked back at John, and added another tick in the evidence column, for _prolonged delusion: catastrophic brain injury._

"Oh, hang on, I'm sorry- there's no need to worry. You're okay, Sherlock. It's just a little splinching, is all. And you actually handled it really well, you know?" He pulled back, allowing Sherlock to re-fix his shirt, but one button later he was back. Almost as if he couldn't quite stand to let him go. "Most people get sick their first time, and that's when just going two feet in a school lesson."

"I don't remember any of this at all, nor do I have any idea what you are talking about."

"Yeah, probably because your brain got turned into a scrambled egg. Again- sorry about that. Apparating from Paris to Scotland is probably not the best idea I've ever had; McGonagall just about turned me into a teapot when she found out, I think." John stood again, his hands both gripping Sherlock's, helping him to his feet. He was dizzy and sore and _lost,_ but John's conspiratorial smile made it almost all feel like London again.

It would've almost been nice, if it hadn't made _absolutely no bloody sense._

"John," he said again. He caught himself with one hand, anchoring himself on the doctor's shoulder as he swayed and rocked, and it was unforgivably _stupid,_ but the words came out anyway. "Is this supposed to be a joke?"

He knew the answer, of course. It wasn't.

But John's answering smile was a glint of something so dangerous enough that even Sherlock knew that laughing would be a very stupid mistake.

"A joke," he repeated, low. "Hm. No. See, a joke, for example. _That_ would be running into you in a bar in the middle of Paris, looking like someone took a tire iron to your face, when I had just got done watching your funeral. And watched you step off a building. _That's_ a joke, Sherlock- not a funny one, but a joke, nonetheless. This?" He gestured, down at Sherlock, down at himself, about the room, at the universe in general. " _This_ is for real."

"...You... appear upset."

His smile this time, again, was a flash of teeth and sharp edges. "Oh, maybe just a tad."

Sherlock swallowed, abruptly feeling rather vulnerable and self-conscious himself. John, while dressed at least slightly ridiculously, was still _dressed,_ while Sherlock was left in bed with pajamas that were not even his; _unfair._ John, looking wounded and hurt and stabbed. "I think that it prudent to explain that I-"

"No, actually, Mycroft's already taken care of it. I know why you jumped, and I know how you're alive." John's hand on his shoulder clawed tighter, squeezing painfully tight, and _oh,_ that smile was _mad._ "I also know why you _think_ you had to do this alone, which is why I'm _not_ going to kill you, but _am_ going to make sure you understand that if you ever do this to me again, I will hex your hair pink and your face blue and force feed you Pepper Imps until smoke comes out your ears, do you understand me?"

Sherlock stared vacantly.

He had never felt this _stupid_ in his life, or _ever_ stared this vacantly at anything before, but here he was. And here John was, grinning dangerously back at him, and he didn't understand what he was supposed to do.

So he said, "John-"

"I missed you so much, you great, big idiot," he choked, and his face fell, and he buried his face into his shoulder and in that moment, Sherlock knew nothing else except that he had missed John Watson.

* * *

A woman slipped in, some time later.

Tall and thin, with long green robes and a pointy black hat. She took one look at them both and smiled, a very slight, stern smile, and turned straight to John. "I'll keep Poppy occupied for you, Watson. Just until the match ends- whatever you need."

"Yes, Professor."

"And you, young man," she said without pause, now looking down her nose at him. She looked to be about to rap his knuckles with a ruler. "You have worried your friend very, very much with all of this nonsense. You'd be wise to not be pulling any stunts like this in the future, is that clear?"

Sherlock pinched his own leg again, and was demonstrably disappointed when it was just as useless as the first time.

"Excuse me, but _who_ exactly are you?" He shook off John's restraining hand and put on his very best affronted look, because he was _not_ about to be intimidated by a nun in a pointy hat. "And where are we? Will _somebody_ get me a cup of tea and answer my questions? I-"

"Sherlock?"

"-a _stunt?_ This was not a _stunt,_ I-"

"When Professor McGonagall tells you to do something, the proper response is _yes ma'am,_ with no questions asked."

"John!"

"Yes ma'am, with no questions asked."

Sherlock ~~sulked~~ stared. John kept on smirking as if this was the best day of his life. Professor McGaongall waited.

She really did look the type to whack his knuckles with a ruler. Or handcuff him to the nearest cabinet drawer until she'd finished searching his room for drugs, because that look in her eyes was so similar he honestly wouldn't have been shocked to find out this was Mrs. Hudson's sister.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, through gritted teeth. "No questions."

"That's better."

* * *

Sherlock was made to finish one cup of water, polish off one cup of tea, and keep down half a biscuit, before John agreed to allow him up and out of bed.

For once in his life, he'd been too utterly confused to bother protesting.

"I actually am dreadfully sorry you had to find out like this," John segued, watching him still like a hawk. He didn't actually seem that sorry. "But Moran was about to shoot us both and it turns out I don't have a fucking clue what anything in Paris looks like, so it was either Scotland, or scaring Mrs. Hudson into a heart attack in the flat. Also, this is still entirely your fault. _Accio."_

John, before Sherlock's very eyes, waved his wand. _Waved._ His _wand._

A small, neat pile of clothes- his own, Sherlock realised, they were distinctive even from here- lifted up from the bed opposite, and shot straight into John's hands.

Just like that.

A bundle of wool and neatly pressed cotton and cashmere, floated up in the air all together in one, and zipped straight to John.

"...magnetic strips," Sherlock said weakly. "There are- magnetic strips. In my clothes. And-" His voice withered, and he swallowed, gesturing at John's hands. He could not bring himself to say _wand._

"Hm? Is that how magnetism works, Sherlock?"

"It... it could be."

Or hidden strings. Hidden strings, yes; the way stage magicians manipulated objects to appear to move as if by their own accord. Or- brain injury was still in the running. His own. Yes. Or magnets. That was it.

Absolutely it.

John smirked, looking sinfully pleased with himself, and handed his clothes over without further comment.

Clothes that- were _mostly_ his.

"John, what the hell is this?"

"Huh? Oh. A welcoming present from Professor McGonagall, is what that is."

"I'm not wearing this."

"Yes, you are."

"I demand that you retrieve _my_ coat instead." After all the work he'd done to be permitted to stand again, Sherlock now sat back straight down with a huff, folding his arms as best he could and holding his head high, sending what was apparently his very own Lord of the Rings cloak to billow to the floor. "Shouldn't be a problem for you. Being so- _magical,_ and all."

John smiled to himself again, leaning back in his chair to almost look as if he was kicking back at the beach. Smug bastard. "Well, actually, it wouldn't be a problem, yeah. But it's a bit of a trek to Hogsmeade, and... no offense, Sherlock? But I'm not leaving you alone here just yet. Mostly because I don't want to come back and find that you got yourself lost and ended up falling into a hole somewhere and befriended a bloody basilisk."

Sherlock blinked again.

He still felt faint, and it had nothing at all to do with blood loss.

"...well," he coughed gruffly, after another few seconds of silence. He had to swallow, trying to force his voice to be rough instead of weak. "I'm still not wearing it."

"All right, then," John said, grinning. He waved his wand again; this time, directing the curtains back on the window with a direct _shink._ "Suit yourself."

Outside was a snowstorm.

Window frosted, clouds gathered, and snow swirling down in a thick torrent of white.

Sherlock looked at the snow. He looked at his shirt, long-sleeved but thin, with his gloves missing. He looked at the castle stones underneath his feet; _castle,_ he was in a _castle,_ why was he in a _castle?-_ a structure that behaved like a cooler in summer and an icebox in winter.

He looked at John, still unreasonably, _unbelievably_ pleased with himself.

Sherlock yanked on the cloak with a second huff, and sat back down in the strongest sulk that he could.

And if John would manage to stop smiling like that, it'd really just be _swell._

"Another present, by the way." John flicked his wand again, at the pile of forgotten clothes; a wad of blue cloth swirled up to _whump_ Sherlock in the face. "This time from Professor Flitwick. We both agreed: you're one hundred percent Ravenclaw, and he says he'd have been thrilled to have you."

Sherlock glared.

Blue and silver scarf. Which, he presumed, would be given the same winning argument the cloak had. Thicker and longer than his own, and- if not for the fact that it apparently labeled him as a _Ravenclaw-_ he probably wouldn't have even minded it.

His head still spun, and if it hadn't been for his already wounded pride, Sherlock probably would've just laid straight back down and tried to go back to bed.

"John?" he said instead, stretching the wool between his hands.

"Yeah?"

"I think that I hate all of this."

And John beamed at him like it was a locked room triple homicide on Christmas.

* * *

Sherlock bargained his way into a tour of the castle.

And by the look on his face, it wasn't so much of a bargain, because John had clearly been on the edge of his seat for this ever since he'd woken up.

* * *

"Mycroft knows about this, then?"

"Of course he does. You're right, he really _is_ the British Government- I get the impression he deduced it all right from the start." John paused, giving Sherlock a curious look. "Does that mean you believe I'm telling the truth, then?"

"Oh, heavens no. I just want to see how far this fantasy extends."

Sherlock turned John's so-called wand around in his hands again, running a thumb down the length of it. Just under eleven inches long, and bendy, more flexible than a living branch would've been, yet far more durability than a dead twig should've had. Though John did wince a bit out of the corner of his eye, when he tested how far it would bend. The grip was pale, inlaid with a small carving... the letter _o._ A carpenter's symbol, perhaps?

It was warm.

A dead twig, dangling loosely in John's hand for at least the past ten minutes, was _warm._ Like a cup of tea, all the way down to the tip and back again.

No.

There were no magnets that he could feel. No hidden light sources that he could see. Nothing at all to signal this stick as anything more than just that.

Ah, but they made them small as buttons, these days, didn't they? Mycroft had once spied on him with a hidden camera in Anthea's glasses; Sherlock himself had hidden recording devices in the caps of pens and buttons. Just because he couldn't see anything didn't mean it wasn't there, and he _knew_ it was there. Oh, it absolutely was, it _had_ to be, and he'd find it and put a stop to all of this nonsense straight away-

"Maple," John said suddenly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The wand wood is maple, and the core is dragon heartstring." John grinned again, his eyes bright with an almost mischievous light. "If you wanted to know."

Sherlock, yet again, stopped dead in his tracks.

Seriously, John look as if he was about to just off and spontaneously combust, with how much he was enjoying this.

" _Dragon heartstring,"_ he repeated.

"Yes. That's right."

Another moment passed in dumbstruck silence. Sherlock's heart beat in time with the throbbing in his shoulder.

Was he really losing his mind? Really? After decades of _ordinary_ people always assuming he was just one wrong turn away from going really cracking mad- and _this was to be_ how it ended?

_Really?_

(Of course, this all would be _Mycroft's_ fault).

"...earth to Sherlock Holmes? ...hellooooo? Sher-"

"Oh- _please,_ John! You expect me to believe-? What- that you just, just- _slay a dragon,_ and then put a piece of its heart in a stick?" He laughed aloud, almost hysterical, the blood pounding in his ears and Jesus Christ, he was going to _cry._ "Come on! What is the point of this, John; why are insisting upon playing this utterly transparent and absurd prank?!" He threw his arms out just for the sake of it, that ridiculous cloak billowing behind him and scarf unfurling with it almost to the floor."And then what do you do?! You kill a dragon, shove its heart into a tree branch, and then you just- what, then? Just give it a wave! And then-"

"Er, I wouldn't, if I were-"

"-say _Abracadabr-oof!"_

The wand recoiled with the force of a gunshot, a flash of hot light slammed into his face with errant gold sparks and smoke, and smacked Sherlock straight over onto his backside.

Sherlock blinked dumbly. _Again._

That was-

It had-

_Okay, then?!_

And, John was laughing.

_Again._

"I warned you!" John cried. He settled down beside him, one hand on his shoulder for support that he didn't even need but still wouldn't let go. Sherlock shoved the death stick back at him, now only too thrilled to let it go. "It's not a dragon stick, it's got magic inside of it, Sherlock! If you wave it around without knowing what you'll doing, you'll do a bit more than put someone's eye out!"

Sherlock's arm throbbed again, now in time with his arse instead. And his pride. And his dignity. And whatever cortex of his brain that was responsible for all rational thought.

And John was _still laughing!_

"But-" he spluttered, staring at his hands. His palms were faintly red and sore, as if he'd picked up a heated beaker without protection. They _hurt,_ like a burn, and the smell- hot and acrid, like an old heater being kicked on again after a long summer. He flexed his hands, staring in utter bewilderment, his heart pounding. _How?_ "But it-"

"Yes, Sherlock?" John finally quit fussing at his shoulder, ensuring there was no new bleeding. He still wouldn't let him go, and his smile swallowed up his entire face.

No.

No.

Just- _no!_

"...Explosive... I... gunpowder. There's- gunpowder. In the tip. And- a remote-activated catalyst. There's- it must be!" Sherlock nodded once, taking in a shaky breath; yes, yes, of course! Surely! That was it! It was the _only explanation!_ "It's- Mycroft's around here, somewhere, isn't he?! He's in on this, too, helping you to- to pull it off, I-"

"Sherlock?"

"This is all _nonsense,_ you can't expect me to believe-"

" _Levicorpus."_

* * *

So.

John was a wizard.

Apparently.

Wizards existed.

_Apparently._

As it so happened, these admittances just _might've_ been given through coercion, because John wouldn't let him down until Sherlock gave up trying to logic out any other rational explanation for how John had been hoist him upside down by his ankles, and then stand there _still laughing_ about it, with nothing more than a wave of his bloody _wand._

* * *

And... then some.

_"Are you going to let me down now, John?!"_

"I don't think I will, actually! A few more minutes like that'll probably do you some good- mmm, do you want some of this, Sherlock? It's delicious-"

_"JOHN!"_

* * *

John still was not completely over the whole _you faked your own death in front of me_ thing, apparently.

* * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Sherlock's head spun, even after John had set him back down on his feet, his hair in his eyes and dangling fuzz all over his face.

The most absolutely disgusting, hateful, _unforgivable_ part about all of this?

It _made sense._

Sherlock had deduced, just only several weeks after moving in, that John had attended boarding school as a child. The mannerisms present in their co-habitation were simply unmistakeable. However, John's family had certainly not had the money for public schooling, and while John was of above average intelligence and competence, he was not exceptional enough for the scholarships it would have required.

Sherlock had deduced, when one too many cases had ended just about too luckily to be believed, that John was- _good._ John was _that_ good. Locks always picked in the blink of an eye, always just fast enough to catch whatever criminal just about to slip away, always tracking Sherlock down in a heartbeat when even Mycroft's CCTVs should've failed. Just a smidgen too competent to even be fair... to even be _explainable_ , by his time in the army. That there was _something_ in John's existence that he was not seeing.

Sherlock had deduced, somewhere about the time when he'd been searching for John's middle name, that there were certain holes in his past. Paperwork that wasn't there when it should've been. Paperwork that certified things such as state schooling, that Sherlock knew very well were not true. _Things_ that simply did not make sense... and yet, there they were.

He hadn't asked Mycroft. For heaven's sake, no. He'd been sure Mycroft had noticed many of the same things that he had, and had the resources to research what he could not- he had trusted that the lack of a confrontation about them meant that Mycroft had deemed them non-serious. Interfering, nosy prat.

Damn it, he'd known.

He'd _known!_

Probably since the very first day that John had moved in, since the very instant he'd ran into a _wizard_ at St. Bar's lab and impulsively thrust out the invitation to move in- Mycroft had _known_ the _entire time!_

Sherlock glared at the castle stones beneath his feet. Mycroft had known, yes. And apparently, not thought it prudent to mention that they had an ally on their side that could use _magic,_ while planning out how best to fake his own suicide?

Interfering, nosy, _useless_ prat.

Oh, Sherlock had deduced on his own _years ago_ that John had a secret. That hadn't been particularly noteworthy: everyone did. What _had_ been curious was just how _prevalent_ this one had been, in John's very existence. A particular dearth, of stories from his school days. A noticeable hole, in answers about his childhood. The way so many little facets of existence with John just seemed _odd,_ in unexplainable ways-

Well, of _course_ they'd been unexplainable.

Magic hadn't been considered a possible solution.

_But it's any possible solution._

_It's not in the rules!_

_Well then the RULES are WRONG!_

Sherlock glanced sideways at John again, a smug sense of satisfaction warming his chest even underneath all the bewilderment of it. John, walking by his side, that same little smile still playing about his mouth, and somewhere underneath that mischievous glee in his eyes was _relief._ John, despite keeping this secret from him for two years straight- was genuinely glad that he was here.

And not _just_ because it now apparently meant John had free reign to use this _magic_ to dangle him upside down.

The rules certainly had been wrong, hadn't they?

"This way," John said, tilting his head, and led Sherlock on, towards what- certainly appeared to be a blank stretch of wall. "We're getting some food in you, doctor's orders. Have you eaten at all, since leaving London? You seriously look _dreadful_ , Sherlock." He tapped his wand against a seemingly random stone, a sharp, loud rap piercing in the silence.

Noiselessly and smooth as silk, the wall rolled apart to yield them passage to yet another corridor.

Because of _course_ it did.

Sherlock cleared his throat in an effort to retain at least _some_ of his pride. He tugged on his shirt, straightening the buttons, and let his Hogwarts cloak trail behind him as if it were just his trusted Belstaff.

"Explain something for me, then, John." He waited, still watching the stride of his friend's confident and self-assured pace, down the corridor. " _If_ you are this... if you are- oh, don't make me say it-"

"A _wizard_ , Sherlock, it's not going to grow fangs and bite you!"

"A _wizard,"_ he moaned; oh, it was _horrible,_ "I don't think you grasp how much I _loathe_ this, John... why didn't you do something when I fell? I mean to say- surely you _could_ have. I refuse to believe that this so-called magic does not have limits, does not have to obey the laws of physics, but from what I have seen so far there absolutely must be some measures you could take to slow an object in free-fall. Alternatively, medicine- of course there would be limits, but John-" Oh, the more he thought about it, the more exciting it was! Could a properly trained wizard perhaps have saved his life, even if he'd fallen for real? His earlier theory of catastrophic brain injury came to mind; could magic heal even that? And how on earth would Moriarty's snipers have reacted to _that?_ Moriarty had planned for every contingency, but this, surely not! What exactly were his snipers supposed to have done, if he had killed before their eyes but then John had just taken out a wand and _magically_ rewound the clock?

Oh, he hadn't even considered- was _time travel_ possible? Actual _time travel?_ Endless possibility, limitless implications, endless questions!

Sherlock was so absolutely enraptured by the idea, his mind alive with a thousand connections, better than cigarettes, better than a ten out of ten murder, better than the purest cocaine- he almost didn't notice, when John stopped walking.

John _had_ stopped. Several steps back, his steady pace thrown to into a sudden standstill. He stared at Sherlock, stricken and eyes wide, wounded, and- ah.

Sherlock knew that look. He'd said something wrong again, hadn't he?

"Sherlock," John said, before he could rewind the conversation himself to find out what. "Do you honestly think I didn't try?"

"I- of course not. That is what I'm asking, isn't it?" Sherlock frowned, clearing his throat. "John?"

John shook himself, after several moments, shuddering from head to toe. The despair on his face fell away with a seemingly great effort, and he shook his head again. "The reason I didn't catch you is because I _couldn't._ I didn't have my wand with me; I had to stop carrying it because of you, you- utter _cock."_

"What did _I_ do?!"

"Always- looking! Deducing! _Thinking!_ I _knew_ one day you would get too suspicious and go looking on your own, and how was I going to explain this _dragon stick_ that you found up my sleeve, hm?" His voice almost cracked and John, red-faced, suddenly shot forward again, grabbing Sherlock by the arm. He kept doing that, today, kept grabbing just to touch and then not letting go. "You're too bloody curious for your own good and I had to leave it behind, and by the time I realised you were planning on jumping it was too late for me to leave to get it, because you were about to _jump_. Yes, I could've caught you, _yes,_ I probably could've kept you alive if you really had fallen and I'd made it to you in time, and _**no,**_ we are not testing it. If I see you trying to test me I swear to god, I will catch you just to kill you myself, I-"

John cut himself off with a sharp breath, suddenly choked to silence. He swallowed audibly, staring at Sherlock with unreadable, soulful eyes, then just shook his head.

"No rooftops," he said, jabbing a finger into Sherlock's chest. "No more rooftops."

One finger in Sherlock's chest, and the other hand, still clasped around Sherlock's own. The index and middle fingers pressed to the inside of his wrist, and measuring his pulse.

"All right," he agreed.

There would be no more rooftops.

* * *

"I hid it with my drugs," John said, around the next corner.

It was Sherlock's turn to stumble. " _Excuse me?"_

"My wand," John said, grinning. His grin was lighter now, the rough edges in his voice gone, but the fingers still pressed against his wrist. "I didn't want to hide my gun that well, not in case you ever _really_ needed it. But I also did keep some serious drugs in the flat, in my kit, and those I did _not_ want you anywhere near. For any reason. So I hid them together."

Sherlock bristled, annoyance and wonder flooding him in equal measure. Marvelous. "So you deemed dangerous narcotics on the same level of necessary secrecy as a stick." He mulled the words over for a moment, tasting their absurdity. "And where _did you_ hide them, then? I know every nook and cranny of that flat, and I never found any sign of this."

"Of course you didn't. I charmed them. Any time you got too close, you would remember something very urgent that you had to take care of right away. Somewhere far away from the flat and my room." John smirked, hand still in his. "By the time you'd attended to whatever non-existent problem you'd been convinced you had to take care of, you'd have forgotten why you were ever poking around in my room in the first place."

For the dozenth time that day, Sherlock stopped in his tracks.

"Are you serious?"

(By the look on his face, this was absolutely intended as John's most gleeful, disgustingly _successful_ revenge.)

"I am," John said back.

Sherlock, yet again, stood stock still place, and forcibly reevaluated every moment of the entire last two years of his life.

"Then... is _that_ why-"

"Yes."

"Every _single_ time-"

"Yes sir."

"I- I tested it! I _never_ could finish fully searching your room- I _knew it!_ Sherlock Holmes doesn't _forget things;_ I knew something was wrong- I experimented, I isolated a problem area with a three foot radius-"

"Yes, you did."

"I set alarms on my phone! I put notes on your door! I wrote reminders on my _skin_ , I- you put a _spell on me?!"_

"On my room, actually, but yes."

"-do you know how many times I wandered into Lestrade's office convinced I had paperwork that urgently needed filling out?! Three times in one week! He thought I was on drugs!"

"Oh, cheer up, mate- he probably thought that anyway."

* * *

John took Sherlock to a room he called the Great Hall, ridiculous, unbelievable, and mostly deserted, and once again proceeded to show off.

This time, with glasses of water that refilled on their own, and plates of food that smelled better than Mrs. Hudson's biscuits and popped into existence whenever Sherlock just touched them. (He'd experimented three times, garnering three entire plates of food he didn't even want, before John told him to knock it off). Plates and glasses that looked as if they'd been made around eight hundred years ago- French construction, he surmised, the metalwork was distinctive- and a ceiling that made Sherlock look twice. Then again. And _again._

Clouds in the ceiling. Sunlight shot through grey skies in a rom that was absolutely not open to the sun. Snow that fell and vanished before it ever hit the tables.

There was only one thing that Sherlock knew for sure, at this point.

And that was that he was _never_ going to let himself be nagged into trying to cook again, now that he knew John was capable of _this._

"Where do I get one of these of my own, then?" He gently prodded John's wand, just lying there in plain sight on the table, _begging_ to be experimented on. Sherlock had learned his lesson about actually trying to use John's wand, but that certainly wasn't going to stop him from continuing to inspect it. " _And_ learn how to use it?"

Dragon heartstring. _Dragon heartstring._ Would John be too terribly upset, if he tried getting at the core...?

"Erm. No. Sorry. You- don't."

_"No?"_

"Yes, Sherlock, you are going to have to hear _no,_ for once in your life." John smirked good-naturedly, rolling his wand back into his grip. "I mean, you could try, but no self-respecting wandmaker would sell you any, and you wouldn't be able to use it even if you got one. You don't have any magic in you. Sherlock, stop that and _eat,_ you're thin as a rake and look like you've been living out of the trash since London."

"I'm on a _case,_ John, I don't eat on a case-"

"What case? You're not on a case! This is not a _case,_ Sherlock, it's-"

"It absolutely is. It's-"

"Sherlock, so help me, either you start eating, or I _will_ hex you straight into next week."

"All right, _fine!"_ Sherlock snatched the proffered magic sandwich that had appeared magically on the magic plate in his magic hands, and he tore off a bite with his teeth, just because he could. It didn't taste like magic. It tasted like peanut butter. Magical teleporting peanut butter.

Sherlock chewed a second bite. Then...

"John- can you actually hex me into-"

"Shut up and eat your sandwich."

"But is time travel a-"

"If you don't shut up and eat your sandwich, I'll never tell you."

Ohhhh, unfair.

Oh, this was _so unfair._

Sherlock clamped his mouth shut with all the effort he was humanly capable of scrounging up, and swallowed a bite that felt like glue.

He still didn't know if it was worth it or not, when John's answer smile was happier than possibly anything that he had ever seen before in his life.

"Good boy," John said. He patted his hand once, even as Sherlock nearly growled into choking, and then the explanation was off again.

"Anyway, magic is actually pretty rare, obviously- you're either born with it or you weren't. You weren't." He paused thoughtfully, already set about sectioning off more magically appearing food onto Sherlock's magical plate. Perhaps he had been possessed by Mrs. Hudson. "I did look into it, a bit after we met. I was curious. I really couldn't imagine you being a Muggle. You were just so... so..."

"Eccentric?" Sherlock suggested, one side of his mouth quirking up. "Inhuman? Like a machine?"

John flinched.

Just- a little twitch of hurt. Something that had happened more than once, today. Always small, little more than a moment of passing discomfort.

Sherlock always noticed.

"..Amazing. Is more along the lines of what I meant to say." John swallowed, his throat moving under his own scarf, a bright red and gold next to Sherlock's blue and silver. "Certainly not- that. No."

"...John-"

"Which is _ridiculous_ , by the way. Muggles aren't any, I don't know, _lesser_ than us, you just can't use magic. Wizard still have yet to figure out laptops. But I looked it up after I met you and Mycroft, and the Holmes line lost its magic about a thousand years ago. About the time of Merlin, actually." Something of Sherlock's suspicion must have shown on his face, because John's grin twitched back into place. "Yes, I said Merlin. _All_ legends have a bit of truth in them, Sherlock, you know that." John paused, chewing thoughtfully. "Most of the time, it actually is something to do with wizards."

"Oh, shut up."

"Try me! Go on!"

Sherlock put on annoyed scowl, fighting to keep his features at least neutral, but inwardly his heart was just _racing_ with glee. John was right, myths so often did begin in the slightest kernel of truth, and now to have this source of information, sitting right in front of him... This was the most glorious opportunity, the most transcendent chance- "Medusa."

It was the first thing that had come to mind, properly obscure and foreign and outlandish, Sherlock thought, but John just laughed and rolled his eyes as if he'd suggested Santa Claus. "Is that it? I fought a Gorgon for my N.E.W.T.s. Nearly wet myself."

"Vampires. Big, blood-sucking fangs that turn into overgrown bats and sleep in coffins and wear velvet."

"Oh, I can do you one better for that one, Sherlock. See up there?" John leaned closer, his voice dropping into a stage whisper as he tugged on Sherlock's hand, nodding up the table at the head of the room. "You see him?"

The man in question was a teacher, by the looks of him. Certainly too old to be a student. Paler than Sherlock, with black hair and robes longer than the ones John had foisted on him, his attention down on a stack of papers before him that he seemed to be marking. He had been perpetually quiet and grim this whole time, and, in a way, reminded Sherlock of Mycroft. That exact same sly, smug lilt of assumed superiority.

Sherlock nearly choked on his sandwich.

(Again.)

"You're _not serious,_ " he murmured back.

"Oh, I am. Or that's the rumor, anyway." John grinned again. "I don't know about the coffin, but the rest..."

Never mind Moriarty, Sherlock decided. Never mind Moriarty, and the worst, most sinfully _interesting_ cases he had ever had the questionable pleasure to solve, cases that ended, for better or for worse, in one self-fired bullet on that rooftop.

He was _never_ going to get bored _here._

"Unicorns, then!" he cried, just as a last resort, throwing his hands up in the air. "Next you're going to tell me there's a herd of bloody unicorns around every corner, then, aren't you!"

"Oh, there's a pack in the Forbidden Forest, actually. Just outside." John paused, licking his lips, and that mischievous light in his eyes was absolutely undeniable. "Would you like to see?"

_"What?!"_

* * *

Sherlock extracted a promise to be taken for the tour outside, just as soon as it stopped snowing.

John, all the while, looked at him in the most peculiar of expressions. A cross between the biggest smile Sherlock had ever seen, and eyes that just almost wanted to cry.

Sherlock, for the first time since he'd fallen, understood what Molly had meant when she'd pleaded with him to not make John watch.

* * *

It was mostly just to get that look off John's face, that Sherlock finally found a segue away from unicorns, and straight into a distraction instead.

"Magic is genetic, then, you said?"

John, midway through eying Sherlock and his plate as if still not convinced he'd eaten enough, started. "Hm?"

"You said you looked up my family, to determine our... relative magical potential. The only reason you would do that is if magic has some relation to genetics." Sherlock broke off, mulling over the ever-expanding database of _Information_ that John had handed him, just today alone. "A dominant trait, I suspect? This society seems very isolated, and dominant traits would breed isolation. Recessive traits have a nasty tendency to skip generations as well, which would be destructive for a society built entirely around said traits." He swallowed again, then grimaced, forcing his next admittance out aloud. "Though my understanding of genetics is, somewhat regrettably, elementary..."

The way John's eyes lit up was enough for Sherlock to see that his distraction had, in fact, succeeded. And- that was enough, then. If it got that devastated glimmer out of John's eyes, then Sherlock was satisfied.

Seriously, how was Sherlock meant to properly enjoy all of this, when John kept looking at him in a way that felt like freefall and the Bart's pavement and as if his skin had been turned inside out, all at once?

"My theory is epigenetics," John said, shrugging a little. He rolled his wand between his hands, back and forth, back and forth. "A switch that's either on or off, inherited, and very hard to flip from one way to the other. Maybe it's only in certain people to begin with." He took another bite and shoved a biscuit at Sherlock again, glaring at him until he conceded. "I actually wrote a research paper on it, in med school. Not for any real reason, just because I was curious, I wanted to understand myself- no Muggles could read it, and no wizards could understand it. Most of them aren't exactly into... science."

Sherlock sniffed. Science wasn't a big hit, here in the medieval castle? Oh, he never could have guessed. "What boring lives they must lead."

"Yeah. But we can still turn you into a ferret. So. There's that. ...No, Sherlock, I will _not_ turn you into a ferret; don't even waste your time asking."

"What a boring life _I_ lead! John! This is criminal! _John!"_

And then John was laughing, his eyes bright and gleaming, and he grabbed his sleeve from across the table and wouldn't let go, and he just looked _happy._ Very rarely was anybody genuinely happy to see Sherlock at all. But John looked genuinely delighted, John had always been the exception, in so many ways-

And that had never been more apparent now that Sherlock was sitting here, eating magic sandwiches on a magic plate with magic unicorns outside, because John was _magic._

He really had been unique, right from the start.

"You really did go to medical school, then?" Sherlock prodded next. He didn't think he would ever run out of questions, ever again. " _Wizards_ don't teach science, so you had to go to a different source?"

It was a simple enough question, Sherlock thought. Easy, and undoubtedly one that he was interested in hearing the answer for.

But this time, John's smile instantly fell.

"It's... complicated."

"Complicated."

"...I did go to medical school, yes. That much about me is true. But my reasons for going, are..."

"Complicated," Sherlock finished, raising an eyebrow.

John did not meet his eyes back.

"How's your arm?" he started, after a few moments of the conversation ground to a dead halt. He cleared his throat in a business-like manner, as if forcibly trying to wrench the topic on, and when he looked up it was to Sherlock's shoulder rather than his face. "We're stuck here until you're well enough to apparate with me again, and that's not until you're back in top form. Madam Pomfrey's a goddess, but sometimes there are complications- is it hurting any worse? If you feel like you need to lie down, then-"

"Interesting."

John stopped for only a moment. His face fell even further than before, like a lights switched dimmed from dusk to midnight. "Don't do that."

 _"That,_ John, is what I do." He narrowed his eyes, the gears already starting to turn. John. John Watson. Dr. John Watson. Dr. John Watson, wizard. His friend. Who had never been shy of mentioning medical school before, but certainly was reluctant _now._ Why? Something to do with these new revelations, clearly; something that related to how his magical identity must have changed things-

"Will you just-" John hissed, gripping his sleeve. _"Stop_ that, would you?" His gaze darted about the Great Hall, still mostly empty, only to rest on the pale teacher from before. Sherlock had noticed him stand up only a minute ago, gathering his things, but it was only now that he realised the man was heading for them. And John was watching him.

This teacher was related, then.

"Not _here,"_ was all John said, not an explanation at all, but it was enough. It was close enough.

Sherlock may have spent several years less on the run than he had been planning, but his paranoia had still been neatly honed all the same, and his hackles raised into a defense that made his heart race and his skin crawl.

And that was how John was still silent, when the teacher, and possible vampire, approached.

"Mr. Watson," the man murmured. His gaze passed over Sherlock as if he were nothing more than part of the scenery, hands folding behind his back and face set in a dismissive frown. "I would've thought to find you at the Quidditch game, this afternoon."

John's smile back was tight and strained. Sherlock didn't like it. "I may've played Quidditch ten years ago, but I'm not so into it that I want to spend the day in the snow, thanks. Besides, my friend isn't really that into sports."

The man's mouth twitched, again. "Quite."

Oh, yes. _Definitely_ reminded him of Mycroft.

Sherlock glared silently back, clenching his jaw, and only stopped himself from standing in the way because he didn't want to be turned into a ferret.

By someone who wasn't John.

...yet.

"Well, then," John said, clearing his throat when the quiet had gone on just long enough for ordinary people to term it awkward. He forced another tight smile. "Professor, this is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, this is Professor Snape, Hogwarts Potions Master."

"Potions?"

"Chemistry, basically," John provided, even as Snape's eyes narrowed. "Magical chemistry."

John might as well as given him a hit of the world's purest cocaine straight into the vein.

"Can I-"

"My class does not have any openings for Muggles," Snape interrupted icily, eyes still only for John. Sherlock might as well have not even existed. "No matter what relatives they might have in the Ministry, Mr. Watson. As you and your friend are both here, alive, and in one piece... somewhat." His mouth twitched again. "I trust that this confirms my last transaction?"

"Transaction?"

"The debt," Snape said, through gritted teeth. "It has been paid."

The silence between them was thick enough to hear a pin drop.

Debt. A debt that had been settled. A debt that had... something to do with him, apparently. A debt that had persisted in the years since John had evidently built a life outside of the wizarding world, between him and this- unpleasant, dangerous man.

Sherlock's eyes darted back and forth, his mouth gone dry with anticipation and the gears spinning. Oh, it was surely wrong, and a bit not good, and impolite, and all of that- but he was _excited._

"Hm. No. _I_ decide when it's been paid." John swallowed his latest bite, chewing somewhat noisily, dramatic as he could be. "Certainly just about done with, though- just needs a bit of topping off, wouldn't you say?"

Snape's jaw was so tight he could've ground glass.

"Yes, I think so," John went on pointedly, when the professor did not. "Just a little- in fact, I'd say we could finish it off, right here and now, if you'd be generous enough to help out my friend, here- the best Muggle chemist that I've ever met, by the way- and let him give potions a try. So?" John crossed his legs in a whole, dramatic show of it, settling back against the table and grinning back, all danger and unspoken threat and nerves of steel. What do you say, Professor?"

Snape looked like he didn't want to say anything at all.

He actually looked like he'd just been force-fed a lemon.

But, with another clearing of his throat, face still in that bitter twist, the professor drew a step back, now looking as if he would like to be just about anywhere else but here. "I will not tolerate my classroom being invaded upon by a Muggle, no matter how you might try to force my hand. If you are _really_ are so insistent upon humoring the whims of the mundane, then-"

Oh, Sherlock decided- this was going to be _fun._

"Oh, it's no trouble, Professor- I don't mind at all. I wouldn't dream of interrupting your class time just to satisfy my own curiosity."

John definitely could see where this was going. Sherlock could tell, from the instantaneous bite of his lip to stop himself from smiling.

Ah, John _definitely_ knew- but Snape definitely did not.

Snape stiffened slightly, his eyes actually landing on him for the first time. He looked a bit taken aback, but quickly reclaimed his composure, straightening his back and shoulders and drawing himself up to his full height. "I am pleased to find at least one of you has some sens-"

"I shouldn't need to sit in on your class, anyway! Not when I have John right here, as a substitute teacher." Sherlock smiled innocently, a well-practiced, carefully honed smile; one that tended to make Mycroft put his face in his hands and moan. "I think I'd rather have him, anyway- if it's all the same to you. You're clearly busy enough as it is."

Ah, the realization dawning at last. Snape's eyes narrowed, his jaw twitching, and for a moment, he was perfectly still and silent. "Excuse me?" he drawled, head tilted.

"You've been marking papers for your younger classes all morning," Sherlock said, flicking a finger at the set there in plain slight, just under his arm."And by the looks of things, they're really not learning as much from your instruction as you had hoped."

Now, he'd been force fed two lemons at once.

Snape had not been the first instructor to be less than pleased at the idea of having Sherlock in their class, and he certainly would not be the last.

"...on the other hand," Snape muttered, after yet another ice-cold moment of silence. His glare looked positively murderous. " _If_ Mr. Watson would like to supervise you himself, then I suppose I would have no objection to you using my classroom stores for the weekend."

"Great! So- this time tomorrow, then?"

Snape stood silently, his eyes sliding between Sherlock to John, still striking a mix between utterly annoyed and utterly disgusted at the same time.

Then, his head held high, he strode on past John's back and straight for the exit without another word.

Almost as charming as Mycroft, too.

"Well!" Sherlock said, when the professor had trailed just out of earshot, smug joy warming through his chest all the way up to the tips of his ears. "That was fun. What's next on the list, then?" He propped his head up on his good fist, starting to turn back to face John. "Do I get to see what Quidditch is? I must correct your earlier assertion, John; while I have no interest in athletics, I would be _fascinated_ to observe a magical... John?"

This time, John was not getting excited with him.

John's lingering smile, in fact, had faded. Just about as soon as Snape had left the Great Hall, and Sherlock was again alone with him- and that little smug, victorious glimmer in his eyes faded, and with it went the grin that Sherlock had already started to miss, ever since leaving London.

Too often, lately, Sherlock himself had been the cause of that look on John's face.

Not for the first time, today alone, Sherlock had to wonder just how many times John had looked like that, since the fall.

"I'm sorry," he said.

John started violently, that distant, sad look in his eyes chased by an instant pallor of confusion. "You're what?" He blinked, looking after Snape. "Because of _him?_ He's always like that, Sherlock, you didn't-"

"Not him. Of course not him, John; I don't care about him." Sherlock swallowed roughly, at a loss for how, exactly, to put it into words. His shoulder itched. "I did something wrong, again. Didn't I?"

But this, too, was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Because John now looked even sadder than before.

" _What?_ No. Oh, no, you didn't, Sherlock, not at all, this- it's nothing to do with you-"

"It always is."

"It's _not,_ listen to me. You didn't do anything wrong. You're just about the only one who didn't, my god. You were _brilliant,_ Sherlock, it's my fault, it's-" He broke off to rub his mouth, tongue-tied and unhappy, and for a moment didn't look like he had any idea how to go on at all.

Then, he pushed to his feet, plates forgotten, and snatched his wand back up after all. "Come with me," he said, and led Sherlock out of the Great Hall without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (be quiet, JKR. Muggles can do potions, Muggles can see ghosts, Muggles can /have fun too/, because what fun is magic John if Sherlock can't enjoy it?)
> 
> Chapter two is written, not yet edited. I'm also waiting on my partner in crime to finish coverart for this AU (!!!!!!) which I want to post with chapter two. Hopefully, it'll be up before next weekend.
> 
> (Want to know what went on after part one's cliffhanger, but before Sherlock woke up here? Stick around for part three!)
> 
> Feedback is always welcome and appreciated! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments/kudos!!!
> 
> Ao3 notifs have been on and off a bit, they're doing some database futzing and that might have knocked emails off track, so hopefully everyone who wants to read this got something. Therefore, I bring you John's backstory: a little bit of angst, a little bit of fluff, and unrelentingly cheesy by the end :)

The explanation, again, came in bits and pieces.

But in the end, this was the only explanation that really mattered.

* * *

"How much do you know about my childhood, Sherlock?"

Sherlock bided his time, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He was absolutely positive that bloody painting kept moving, just out of the corner of his eye.

So John had guided him out of the barely occupied Great Hall up to this deserted corridor, seemingly chosen at sheer random, and stood there awkwardly now, his gaze averted and his features clouded, to... ask him to make a deduction.

Marvelous.

"Are you asking after the records that I're reviewed in trying to clear up inconsistencies, records that I now know to likely be false?" He hung back another few steps, narrowing his eyes at a suspicious looking wall. Or one of them, because _every_ wall was suspicious. "Or are you asking after what I've deduced without any outside influence to cloud my conclusions?"

"The latter. Watch your step."

Sherlock did watch his step. John also grabbed him by the arm a split second later, and was the one to keep him up on his feet as the stairs beneath them grated to swing sideways so smoothly it just about careened him into the banister.

(He was really starting to suspect at least some of this was absolutely on purpose.)

 _"Well,"_ he snapped, wrenching his balance back from the brink with one usable arm, John as a makeshift crutch, and sheer force of will. Moving stairs. Who had thought _that_ was a good idea?! He smoothed his shirt down as best he could, head held high and pride hauled back with his balance. "You have a contentious relationship with your family, and that's likely putting it mildly. You don't speak to either of your parents, though I suspect they are still alive. You don't seek out contact with your sister, but you are willing to speak to her if she initiates it, which suggests unresolved issues, of some kind. Guilt, perhaps. Your sister is also an on-again-off-again alcoholic, behavior that I suspect she learned from your father, though possibly your mother; balance of probability suggests the father. Your upbringing was middle class; though you never went hungry, you also did not have access to any of the privileges that wealth affords. I also am nearly positive that it was a violent household, almost certainly on account of the father, and this likely plays a role in why you are estranged."

John kept on walking, leading the way in silence. His scarf trailed behind him as a careless, fluttering tail, swishing with every corner that he took, his stride even faster than Sherlock's. One of his many nervous tics.

Sherlock cleared his throat. "That's... it."

There was another uncomfortable silence.

Perhaps he'd said something wrong, again?

"I really do hate you sometimes, you know," John murmured. There was no venom in his voice, though, the anger that would've identified it was genuine, and Sherlock's stab of muted worry was sufficiently muffed back into non-existence. John wrapped his arms around himself, shivering and unhappy, and kept quiet for another few moments.

Somehow, it was apparent that Sherlock was meant only to listen.

"When I was ten, our teacher had us all write an essay, on what we would do if we could use magic. You know, if we could choose one superpower in the world to have, what would it be and why?" John smiled at him a little, but it was faint and hard. "I'm guessing stuff like that wasn't big at whatever fancy place you went to, but- pretty common, for state schools. And everyone had pretty much the same answers, too. They'd fly, or create world peace, or turn invisible; nothing that imaginative. Give us a break; we were little kids. My answer was that I'd be able to stand up to our dad." Despite the words, John hardly seem to care, treating it all with a tired indifference worthy of nothing more than a shrug as his attention shifted back down to his feet. "Believe it or not, I honestly didn't even realise until then how abnormal it was, for a ten year old's biggest dream to be of being able to beat up his dad."

Sherlock was hardly an expert on normal. Childhoods or otherwise. He did suspect, based purely on his observations of the ordinary populace, that this was actually much more _normal_ than people really liked to imagine.

"You weren't born like this, then?" He gestured down the castle corridor. At the paintings that moved, the walls that were false, the doors that talked. "You were- a Muggle?"

"Hm? Oh, no. I told you, you're either born with it, or you're not- I was born like this. I was just born in a non-magical family, and had a non-magical upbringing. Sure, sometimes odd things happened, around me, things that I couldn't explain, but- my friends just assumed I was really, really lucky." John paused, giving him a knowing sort of smile. "The same way even you never really took notice that sometimes, I was able to make tea without ever actually moving from my chair."

"You did _what?"_

"Then I got my Hogwarts letter when I was eleven, and everything finally made sense."

"No, John, you did _what?_ And you still complained about me never making tea?!"

John snickered quietly, his eyes warm as he drew another step closer to Sherlock. He'd been dong that often, today. Always just a step nearer than was normal, always close enough to touch his sleeve, or catch his hand if he lingered behind.

Almost as if Sherlock might disappear, if John let him go.

"I was thrilled, obviously. Hogwarts is a boarding school, I'm sure you've deduced that much, and I had all these ideas in my head that I was gonna go away to school and come back that summer able to do anything that I wanted. My dad was going to be scared of _me,_ for the first time in his life, and everything was going to be just fine." He snorted, hands stuck in his pockets. "Harry was... jealous, I think."

"She's not-?"

"No, she's not. She's older than me, too, so there wasn't even a chance. Professor McGonagall said it was only going to be just me, the day she delivered my letter." John hesitated again, clearly reluctant to say. "Don't get me wrong, she was very happy that I could be safe, but she... was more than a bit jealous that she couldn't come, too."

_Unresolved issues: likely relating to guilt._

Check.

Sherlock paused again, fishing about for the words to say. He'd heard the standard, expected responses often enough, working with the Yard, but often deleted it offhand as sentimental tripe- 'you were just a child', 'you couldn't have done anything', 'it wasn't your fault'... drivel. All just... drivel. It clearly didn't work; merely an army of useless anodynes tossed out by adults to children, to soothe their own inability and incompetence. Sherlock didn't partake in such useless tripe.

"I hope you turned _him_ into a ferret," he said, instead.

John brightened like a light switch. So sudden and immediate, his laugh a sharp stab of warmth that sailed right through Sherlock's chest, and if it was a bit not good, Sherlock really didn't care. "Yeah, he deserved it, didn't he? Unfortunately, I didn't learn how to pull off something like that until after I graduated. Or maybe that's a good thing, because if I'd learned it my first year, I think I might've actually done it."

"A pity."

"Yeah, well," John chuckled, shrugging again. "Instead, I got back after my first year, and I could make a feather float, and use my wand as a flashlight, and... that's about it."

The look on John's face then was not a pleasant one.

_Mental note: check with Mycroft about John's father._

Not to kill him, of course; heavens no. Not because John needed the protection, either. Because he quite clearly did not.

Just... for checking.

Just to be sure.

"Could nobody else have turned him into a ferret, then?"

John merely looked at him, brow furrowed and features blank, so Sherlock went on, gesturing to the empty corridor at large. _"You_ might have been unable to, but there were others, surely. If wizards are capable of all of _this,_ then they absolutely must be capable of making a troublesome waste of oxygen- disappear."

"Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure. What you're trying to say is actually still murder, by the way, but yeah, sure- we're capable of it, all right." His arms folded in an aggressive jerk, voice gone bitter and cold as the chill from outside. "But they don't."

"What do you mean, they don't? For what purpose? To what end?"

"Because wizards value secrecy more than anything else, and if they ran about doing Muggle law enforcement, then they wouldn't be able to have secret magical castles like this, no matter how many lives it'd save." John looked away, and his voice was careless and barely more than a bland irritant, but his hand was shaking by his side. "I finally worked up the nerve to ask McGonagall, my third year. Not directly, at first, but- there's only so many ways a thirteen year old kid can ask _but what if I have to defend myself_ but she's going to ask _why._ "

Ah.

And bureaucratic red tape would... be bureaucratic red tape.

John cleared his throat again, looking back up with a smile forcibly arranged back on his face that had been carved there. An unskilled carpenter hacking at a tree instead of _John's smile._ "For what it's worth, I'm almost positive McGonagall followed me home a few times after that, to scare the living daylights out of my dad. She felt terrible for it, it- wasn't _her_ fault. Please don't take it out on her, next time you see her. There just isn't much of an impression anybody can ever leave on somebody that drunk."

Sherlock bit his smile back, and kept silent.

He'd see about that.

John spoke vaguely, from there. Sherlock could tell when facts were being glossed over, incidents omitted, fights left in the past where they belonged. He'd tried his best, he described, but one could really only make empty threats a certain number of times before even a stupid drunk realised they were just that.

It sounded like a case Sherlock never would have taken, because there was no mystery in it at all. Just a drunk, a battered wife, a son that modeled himself into the golden child, and a daughter that turned to the streets instead.

In the end, none of this was even anything new.

Sherlock had deduced it all years ago.

Not the specifics, of course. Not the magic, not the secrecy laws that tied John's hands even when he learned spells to fight back, not the peculiar circumstances of it all- but this was nothing that hadn't been just blazingly obvious, to someone like Sherlock. The details John was filling in all fit _perfectly_ with what he had deduced on his own. Boarding school during the school months, only summers spent at home, a family that he saw as his responsibility to protect combined with a forced helplessness that had escalated to critical levels...

All culminating into his John Watson: a man with a backbone of steel, a reckless, insatiable hunger for danger, and a temper with a fuse so short all it took was one wrong look.

The addition of _magic_ explained details, but it didn't change any single crucial fact that Sherlock had already observed about his flatmate.

It did, however, explain the part that came next.

"I graduated, and went to work for the government as an Auror. Magical SWAT team, pretty much, which I'm sure comes as no surprise to you. By that time, Harry was already out of the house, and I just wanted to get away from it all." He shrugged again, putting on an air of forced casualness. _It's fine. It's all fine._ "I wanted nothing to do with him anymore, so when I got the job offer, I just accepted it without thinking twice."

"That doesn't surprise me at all. You've never been much for planning, John."

"Yeah, well... this time, it probably wouldn't have hurt if I had."

John slowed down again, his hands still in his pocket and his eyes clouded, still averted away from Sherlock's. He lingered by banister for a few moments, frowning down at the snow, still falling gently outside.

It was just the two of them.

The two of them, against the rest of the world.

The difficulty was, Sherlock's world had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

"You were right," John said abruptly. "Earlier. Muggleborns like me are actually really rare, and wizards are... isolationist. Blood purity is a thing that matters, to some people, and I- don't have it. At all." He drummed his fingers against the frosted pane, forcibly indifferent, but the tight set of his jaw was unyielding and his eyes were hard as glass. "I graduated right into a wizard race war, and I was one of the people the other side wanted to stamp out of existence."

Sherlock bit his tongue. He stayed silent, but could not stop himself from sending his eyes searching down to John's shoulder.

Perhaps he hadn't been shot after all.

But he couldn't help himself- had never once in his life been able to let something lie, couldn't staunch that stab of curiosity, the insatiable hunger to _know,_ and he started on himself no matter that it probably would've been best to stay quiet. "I would've guessed that would be right up your alley, then. Fighting a war against prejudiced idiots?" He nudged him, trying to get his attention, just to make him _smile._ "Granted, working for the government? That's a bit of an unfortunate side-effect, but since I assume vigilantism isn't a stable career path here, either..."

But John's expression stayed shrouded, and the renewed smile he wanted to provoke didn't come.

"Being an Auror was great, for me," John said flatly. It didn't sound great at all. "Got me a lot of important friends. Friends who, by the way, are the reason you're able to be here right now, listening to all of this, instead of having your memory wiped at St. Mungo's. But it also got me a lot of enemies."

"So? Enemies are idiots. I'd know; they've been trying to kill me for years, John. And here I am- still-"

"Yeah, well, that's great for _you_ , Sherlock. It's really not great for me, when your enemies are wizards and your family is a Muggle sister who doesn't have a shot in hell at being able to keep herself safe."

Sherlock snapped his mouth shut.

Oh.

Unresolved issues. John, uninvolved and silent about it, refusing intervene unless asked because of some unmistakable amount of guilt. Harry, her life an unrepentant, unrelenting disaster of divorce and substance abuse. In a way that often correlated very highly with past incidence of trauma.

_Oh._

For the first time, Sherlock had no idea what to say.

John pushed away from the window again, the way that he always did; never able to hold still, never able to stay calm. He strode angrily down the corridor, robes swirling behind him and eyes flashing and his pace an incensed cadence that nearly outstripped Sherlock's. "I spent two years fighting a war for Wizarding Britain, and my sister nearly got killed in the crossfire, and their answer for it was a _thank you_ and a _sorry we can't do more to help."_

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, gaze flicking back and forth. He took in a breath, unsure of how best to plunge in, but the sound alone looked to stab through John and shove him on with the force of a bullet. "My sister nearly died, and they wouldn't let me take her to St. Mungo's, because she was a Muggle, and until the war ended, they weren't letting any Muggles into the country. No _exceptions allowed._ They refused to help us when we were kids- and then! Even when it was _their fault,_ they still wouldn't help! They looked at me and said _no!_ " He folded into himself, a prickly ball of anger and injustice and hurt all in one, breaths a sharp rhythm that stabbed in the pit of his stomach; oh, John was more than furious, John was _hurt_. "We were on our own. We've- _always_ been on our own."

Here, then, was the answer to John's fiercely honed streak of independence.

So unendingly defiant that he'd sooner fall off a cliff, before asking for a hand to help.

An independence that Sherlock had cultivated all on his own, because he'd figured it out a long time ago that relying on other people only wound up in being let down.

_Alone protects me._

_No- **friends** protect people. _

It was the same sentence, really, when they got down to it.

Sherlock wouldn't rely on anybody to protect him, and John was just the same. He wasn't that stupid. Other people, ordinary people, were incompetent, inconsistent, and unreliable. They tended not to like him, and unlikeable people tended to not endear themselves for having favours done for them. He was at his best if he cut out the incompetence of others entirely. He had always been best _alone._

But Sherlock _would_ protect John. And John...

John, evidently, had decided that he would protect him.

John slowed down again, his shoulders tense but a hand trailing near Sherlock's. He didn't look at him still, but the angry furor was edging away, softening closer into something that was tired; something that was resigned, having worn out upset long ago. "That's a bit of the favour," he said quietly, his shoulders slumped, "that Snape owes me. He was with the people, that cursed me and Harry."

That cold, quiet professor from before? The one that John had just for _potions lessons_ with? Sherlock drew back a step, swallowing a sudden wave of apprehension. Maybe being turned into a ferret was the least of his worries. "Is _that_ why he was so-?"

But John shook his head, not even needing him to finish his sentence. "I told you, Snape's always like that. I think he was just born with a stick up his arse. No, Snape was with the Death Eaters that that attacked us, but after- he told me the counter-curse. Explained to me how to use it, and helped me when things went wrong. Harry would've died, if not for him." He shook his head, mouth small and forlorn. "He was a double agent, or turned into one, I've- never known how much of the story is true, to be honest. I figure some of it is, since they let him be a teacher here, but... never really gave a damn, believe it or not. The salient point was that the most I'd ever gotten out of the wizarding world was from somebody who'd tried to kill me, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I quit the day Harry was well enough for me to take the trip, and the week after that was confunding my way into medical school."

There was another uncomfortable silence, John lingering by his side. One hand trembled on and off, an unsteady cadence of tapping at his thigh.

When he looked at Sherlock again, it was with that little, sad twitch at the mouth. That same _sad_ expression as before, that Sherlock would give just about anything in the world to crush out of existence. "This is actually the first time I've been back here in almost ten years."

Ah.

This certainly explained how John had been able to keep this secret so effectively from him, and for so long.

 _And,_ perhaps... why Mycroft had let him.

No use for a magical minion if said minion had already exiled himself from magical society.

Sherlock, once again, cast an uncomfortable glance around the empty corridor. His healing shoulder itched again, and he rubbed at it through his substitute Belstaff, another sense of apprehension crawling in his chest. A shoulder that had been healed by a society that held a questionable valuation of his worth as a human being, and that appeared to be putting it rather mildly. A heavily protected castle where their children were educated, and Sherlock had been allowed inside with barely even an escort- by a people that seemed to want him little more than dead.

Snape's earlier and obvious disdain for him now suddenly made a worrying amount of sense.

He would've expected that to be the _norm_ , here. For- people like him.

Which did raise the very worrying question, of why the hell had John brought him here.

"I'm not sure if I should be insulted or flattered. I think I'll choose flattered. Just for the sake of things- much nicer, this way." Sherlock paused, choosing his words very carefully. Should he be wary of the moving pictures on the walls, the unknowns around every corner? Weeks on the run had hardened that survival instinct, and John's assurance that it was safe here had calmed it, but now it was back and he relished its caution and sting. "But ,I'm not _quite_ sure how I ought to take having my welfare being entrusted to a group that seems so historically and consistently _untrustworthy._ "

 _"Well,_ part of that just _might_ be because I actually didn't have a plan? Because I was under the impression that you were dead?"

"That... might have been a... _slight_ problem..."

Rolling his eyes, John nudged him to a stop, one hand prodding at his back. "Come on," he said, a sudden switch of topic. "I'm sorry, I've been an idiot. You've been through the wringer and here I am, dragging you all over the castle. Sit down a moment."

_"John-"_

"Just humor me. I promise, these stairs don't move."

Sherlock actually was more interested in further exploring than _resting,_ but had learned long ago that arguments were useless, against _this_ John. So he did as he was told, and the distant throbbing abated with a last gasp of a jolt, and the dizzy space in his head dissipated, and it wasn't until he had something solid underneath him that he realised just how close he'd been to falling.

From what little he'd seen of his shoulder, all available data and known medical science told him he should've still been bedridden and in agonising pain for a week.

Instead, he'd spent the day climbing stairs, touring a massive castle with ground that moved underneath his feet, and the only pick-me-up he'd needed was John, sitting beside him with a steadying hand on his back.

After giving him a minute to catch his breath, then and only then, did John go on.

"Hogwarts really isn't all that bad. They did what they could for me, when I was a kid, and- they will for you, too. Seriously, Professor McGonagall's ready to adopt you just for being my friend, and she's barely even spoken to you yet." John's hand down his back, fingers curling into his shirt, grasping, unwilling to let go. "Even Dumbledore came by, just to say that sometimes a Muggle can be more magical than any of us ever could. And then offer some licorice."

"Nonsense," Sherlock sniffed, and John grinned.

"Yeah, he's a nutter, all right, but so are you. You'd like each other, I- oh, move this way a bit-"

"What's- oh."

Oh.

Oh, _hell._

"Good afternoon, Sir Nicholas," John greeted, and now he was beaming like a cat that had got the cream.

And Sherlock, yet again, was completely and utterly dumbstruck.

"Oh, good afternoon, John," said the ghost. "It's been a bit, hasn't it? Oh, and who's this, now?"

The actual, honest-to-god, silvery transparent, floating, straight out of the 1400s with the clothes and the hair to boot, _ghost._

What.

"This is Sher-"

"Are you a _ghost?!"_

Sherlock bounded to his feet before the wires had even connected, brain kicked back into gear and glee just starting to soar. The ghost- _ghost!-_ looked at him rather oddly, which was just even more fantastic, wasn't it? "Absolutely _fascinating!_ A ghost, John! Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Oh, god..."

"Outstanding, this is simply outstanding- do you understand the scientific implications of this, John, the effect this could have on the Work? _The Work-!_ Your name is Sir Nicholas, he said? From circa 1400s, I suspect? No- 1500s?" Sherlock craned his neck again, searching the oddity up and down in astonishment. "For the first time in my life, I'm not feigning manners to say it is a _pleasure_ to meet you."

The ghost- still just floating on the stair above, transparent and hollow like smoke- looked almost touched, if off-put. He puffed out his chest, all but preening, and accepted Sherlock's outstretched hand. "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington," he said, more than a little proudly. "And who might you be?"

His hand swung straight through Sherlock's in a wave of blood-chilling ice, and Sherlock just about came off the floor in excitement.

" _This_ is Sherlock Holmes," John groused, giving Sherlock a Look. He was too absolutely thrilled to care. "A Muggle, and-"

"A _Muggle!"_

"-a very good friend of mine. Who I'm sure will be absolutely delighted to sit down with you for an in-depth interview with all the ghosts in the castle, as soon as I'm over the fact he _just tried_ to bloody well become one himself and I'm sure he isn't about to do so again, thanks."

"Oh, come now, John-"

"Yes, Sherlock?" John said, and his smile was dangerous and sharp, like bits of glass.

The ghost was sent on his way thusly; he seemed absentminded already, and only took another disarming comment or two to get distracted. Sherlock, as disappointed as he was to see him go- and he was _very_ disappointed- had to concede that John was right. This was an interview best conducted when he was running at top form.

 _Later,_ he forced himself. Ah, god... _later._

So much saved for later.

John elbowed him gently with Sir Nicholas gone, prodding him back to sitting down. "See?" he said, lightly teasing. "I know I haven't given that magical world as a whole the best sort of first impression, today, but Hogwarts is _different_ , Sherlock. It's special. And when I was in Paris and saw _you_ \- the only thing that mattered was keeping you safe. Hogwarts will always be the safest place I know."

As if to illustrate the point, he waved his wand again, nothing more than a lazy circle in the air. An abandoned scrap of old paper fluttered up into the air, rolling this way and that, defying gravity and science and all rational thought- all with nothing more than the tip of John's wand.

"I guess... what I'm tying to say, Sherlock. I brought you here because- this place matters to me. And _you_ matter to me. So... oh, stop looking at me like that, I know it's awkward, shut up- I just didn't want to have to lie to you anymore."

Sherlock tilted his head to the side. Sentiment, he wanted to say, useless sentiment.

But not this time.

"Then, you..." He stopped licking his lips. "You still... consider me-."

John looked at him curiously, blue eyes crinkling with worry, and a nervous fluttering unfolded in his chest that was entirely foreign and absolutely unwelcome. "That is to say-" he tried again, the words sticking like fudge,"I merely mean- you have expressed that you are very displeased with me., and how matters have unfolded. For good reason, as I understand it, but while I maintain that I only acted in order to keep you safe, I-"

"Sherlock."

The squirming upset of a protest died in his throat. For a moment, Sherlock was back on the edge of St. Bart's roof.

His warm hand came to rest on his arm.

This time, though still dizzy, blindsided, and a perhaps just a little bit terrified- he didn't fall.

"I am still- mad, yeah. That was the worst moment of my life, Sherlock, and that's not going away just because I found you again still alive and kicking. But that's not the _point."_ He coughed hard, his voice suddenly rough, and turned away from Sherlock to clear his throat and his eyes. "My whole life has come down to people giving me excuses, I think. Dad hits because he drinks. Mum lets him because she needs the money. Harry drinks because everything wrong in her life is my fault. Just about anything that I asked for from Wizarding Britain, they had an excuse ready so as not to give it to me, no matter how badly I needed it or what I did to earn it. There's always been something more important than me, and in the end, what always happens is that I'm left to deal with it on my own."

The hand on Sherlock's arm stayed.

"You jumped off a building for me, Sherlock."

There was another long moment of uncomfortable silence.

 _It's not that important,_ Sherlock wanted to say, but... it was.

 _It wasn't dangerous,_ Sherlock wanted to say, but... it had been.

 _No_ , Sherlock wanted to say, _I didn't jump for you._

But... he had.

"So, of course-" John coughed again, clearing his throat, his voice, "of bloody _course_ I'm still upset, but that's not going to stop me from being there with you for every last one of Moriarty's men we still have to stop, and that's not going to stop me from being there to catch you next time you fall."

"I thought that I wasn't allowed to have a next time?"

John's nails dug into his arm, but his smile was tea and cluedo and a Union Jack pillow. "You're not, you absolute bastard," he said, and Sherlock marveled at how much _bastard_ and _cock_ could somehow sound like _best_ and _friend._

The impossible warmth of the castle pressed closely in around them, and portraits walked and talked right in front of him, and John's maple and dragon heartstring wand stayed between them.

"Look," John said, nodding to the great glass window. "The snow's stopped."

So it had.

"You still want to go looking for those unicorns, then?"

_Oh, god, yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I would wait to upload this chapter until the coverart was finished. Slight change of plan: I'm going to upload the coverart and its scene alone, by themselves, in chapter three. This chapter is the end of the fic; next "chapter" is going to be only coverart and ~700 words. Still waiting on my partner in crime to finish the art up, so I'll be back with that soon, and meanwhile, will continue working on the hurt/comfort part three to this AU!
> 
> Feedback is welcome and always appreciated!


	3. Coverart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At very long last, the coverart for the AU has been finished! And now that I have temporarily paused my over the top absolutely excited and overjoyed screaming at how beautiful it is, I bring it and the accompanying scene on to you. 
> 
> (I need to do write music for this artist more often to earn art like this, because this is WOW)

That day, Sherlock saw:

Floating candles.

Moving portraits.

Magic wands.

That day, Sherlock met:

A ghost.

A half goblin.

A possible vampire.

That day, John said:

I'm a wizard, Sherlock, and proceeded to prove it at every possible turn.

That day, Sherlock saw, met, and heard everything that was impossible.

And it still didn't sink all the way in until that night, and he and John met the hippogriff.

* * *

It was bigger than any horse that Sherlock had ever ridden.

It had more talons than any horse that Sherlock had ever ridden- which was to say, more than zero.

It had- pardon his French- _fucking wings._

And John had taken one look, and jumped the fence like it was a war in Afghanistan.

It was huge. It was smoke-grey and white as the fresh snow, a mane that was long feathers and two massive wings bigger than any Sherlock had ever _seen._ Its front feet were not hooves but _talons,_ talons as big around as his hand, and its face was a beak big enough to rip a chunk straight out of John's neck. Feathers. Talons. Wings. _Horse._ No.

No no no.

Not okay.

_Not okay!_

And John was standing right there in front of it.

Alarm bells smashed in Sherlock's head louder than gunshots.

_NOT OKAY, NOT OKAY, NOT OKAY!_

Except _-_

John stood within arm's reach of the monster, and- the monster let him.

Step by step, John approached. His steps crunched and muffled in the fallen snow, each one measured and careful, a faint intrusion into the quiet that swallowed up the entirety of the grounds. He was close enough to get the life bitten out of him by a monster bird-horse hybrid. He was close enough and small enough and _human_ enough to get murdered by a terrifying creature that had no right to exist and was staring at John like a piece of meat, and-

Well, Sherlock was just about to _strangle him,_ because he'd thrown himself off a rooftop to keep John alive, and now was standing here watching him about to get mauled by a wild _hippogriff._

Except there was no mauling.

"That's it," John coaxed gently. He stood stock still, tiny and defenseless and so very _human._ "That's it. It's just me. Come on, I'm not going to hurt you."

He bowed.

Bowed. His _head,_ Sherlock fumed, John stood there bowing his head and _defenseless!_ Like an _idiot!_

There was silence.

Silence, and falling snow.

And then-

The hippogriff bowed its head back.

John and the hippogriff, bowing to each other in the snow.

"That's it," John said again. "Good girl. Come on, love." He lifted a hand, carefully, oh so carefully. Inch by inch, smiling so fragile at the dangerous, hulking beast in the snow. He smiled, and he was tiny and defenseless and human, but the hippogriff held stock still, and when John patted a hand to its neck, the noise that rippled out was nothing less than a deep, guttural, insane _purr._

John was petting the hippogriff.

John stood there. Dressed in wizard's robes and with wand in hand, across from a gigantic winged beast that defied all semblance of logic and reason and rationality that Sherlock had built his entire existence around. His reasonable, solid Dr. John Watson. Stood there on the castle grounds, small and grinning in the white expanse of snow, and stroke by stroke, coaxed the hippogriff to heel.

He'd done it as easily as walking.

He'd taken one look at the hippogriff, and Sherlock had just about had a heart attack, but John-

John was there, as naturally as _thinking._

A lifetime of being _himself_ had endeared Sherlock to the abnormal. A day's worth of talking portraits, chattering ghosts, and magic tricks had jolted Sherlock off the tracks, dropping him face-first in the deep end and leaving him to drown or to swim.

But it wasn't until now, waiting there, watching John exist as natural as breathing and just standing there, stroking the hippogriff's neck, that the realities of his existence finally slid, shifted, and anchored themselves down into their new normal.

That perhaps-

"Sherlock?" John called. He still held very careful, very slow, the blue gaze that searched over his shoulder sunshine-bright and his smile as genuine as the biting cold of the snow underfoot. "You want to go for a ride?"

-he wasn't the _only_ extraordinary one.

Artist: [Akarri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akarri/pseuds/Akarri)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always welcome and appreciated <3
> 
> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://problematic-ranowa.tumblr.com/)


End file.
